554 research outputs found
Studying the impact of a medication use evaluation for polymedicated older patients by the community pharmacist (SIMENON) : study protocol
Background: Aged polymedicated patients are particularly vulnerable for drug-related problems. A medication review aims to optimize the medication use of patients and improve health outcomes. In this study, the effect of a pharmacist-led medication use review is investigated for polymedicated ambulatory older patients with the aim of implementing this pharmaceutical care intervention across Belgium.
Methods: This article describes the study protocol of the SIMENON study and reports the results of the feasibility study, which aimed to test and optimize this study protocol. In the SIMENON intervention study, 75 Belgian community pharmacies each recruit 12 patients for a medication use review. For each patient, the identified drug-related problems and subsequent interventions are registered using the PharmDISC classification. In a subset of Dutch speaking patients, a pretest-posttest single group design is used to measure the impact of this review on patient related outcomes using questionnaires. The main outcome of the study is the type and number of drug-related problems and related interventions. A second outcome is the impact of the medication use review on adherence, objectively measured with dispensing data. Evolution in medication related quality of life is another outcome, measured with the Living with Medicines Questionnaire version 3. Other patient reported outcomes include adherence, self-management, patient satisfaction, fall incidents and use of emergency healthcare services.
Discussion: The findings of this study can provide data on the effectiveness of a medication use review in the Belgian primary care setting. Furthermore, it will provide insights in which patients benefit most of this intervention and therefore facilitate the implementation of medication review in Belgium
Density of a gas of spin polarized fermions in a magnetic field
For a fermion gas with equally spaced energy levels that is subjected to a
magnetic field, the particle density is calculated. The derivation is based on
the path integral approach for identical particles, in combination with the
inversion techniques for the generating function of the static response
functions. Explicit results are presented for the ground state density as a
function of the magnetic field with a number of particles ranging from 1 to 45.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures; To appear in Phys. Rev. E on December 1, 2000;
e-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected]
A natural Finsler--Laplace operator
We give a new definition of a Laplace operator for Finsler metric as an
average with regard to an angle measure of the second directional derivatives.
This definition uses a dynamical approach due to Foulon that does not require
the use of connections nor local coordinates. We show using 1-parameter
families of Katok--Ziller metrics that this Finsler--Laplace operator admits
explicit representations and computations of spectral data.Comment: 25 pages, v2: minor modifications, changed the introductio
Type 1 plasminogen activator inhibitor binds to fibrin via vitronectin
Type 1 plasminogen activator inhibitor (PAI-1), the primary inhibitor of tissue-type plasminogen activator (t-PA), circulates as a complex with the abundant plasma glycoprotein, vitronectin. This interaction stabilizes the inhibitor in its active conformation. In this report, the effects of vitronectin on the interactions of PAI-1 with fibrin clots were studied. Confocal microscopic imaging of platelet-poor plasma clots reveals that essentially all fibrin-associated PAI-1 colocalizes with fibrin-bound vitronectin. Moreover, formation of platelet-poor plasma clots in the presence of polyclonal antibodies specific for vitronectin attenuated the inhibitory effects of PAI-1 on t-PA-mediated fibrinolysis. Addition of vitronectin during clot formation markedly potentiates PAI-1-mediated inhibition of lysis of 125I-labeled fibrin clots by t-PA. This effect is dependent on direct binding interactions of vitronectin with fibrin. There is no significant effect of fibrin-associated vitronectin on fibrinolysis in the absence of PAI-1. The binding of PAI-1 to fibrin clots formed in the absence of vitronectin was characterized by a low affinity (Kd ~ 3.5 μM) and rapid loss of PAI-1 inhibitory activity over time. In contrast, a high affinity and stabilization of PAI-1 activity characterized the cooperative binding of PAI- 1 to fibrin formed in the presence of vitronectin. These findings indicate that plasma PAI-1-vitronectin complexes can be localized to the surface of fibrin clots; by this localization, they may modulate fibrinolysis and clot reorganization
A Mission to Explore the Pioneer Anomaly
The Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft yielded the most precise navigation in deep
space to date. These spacecraft had exceptional acceleration sensitivity.
However, analysis of their radio-metric tracking data has consistently
indicated that at heliocentric distances of astronomical units,
the orbit determinations indicated the presence of a small, anomalous, Doppler
frequency drift. The drift is a blue-shift, uniformly changing with a rate of
Hz/s, which can be interpreted as a
constant sunward acceleration of each particular spacecraft of . This signal has become known as the Pioneer
anomaly. The inability to explain the anomalous behavior of the Pioneers with
conventional physics has contributed to growing discussion about its origin.
There is now an increasing number of proposals that attempt to explain the
anomaly outside conventional physics. This progress emphasizes the need for a
new experiment to explore the detected signal. Furthermore, the recent
extensive efforts led to the conclusion that only a dedicated experiment could
ultimately determine the nature of the found signal. We discuss the Pioneer
anomaly and present the next steps towards an understanding of its origin. We
specifically focus on the development of a mission to explore the Pioneer
Anomaly in a dedicated experiment conducted in deep space.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figures; invited talk given at the 2005 ESLAB Symposium
"Trends in Space Science and Cosmic Vision 2020", 19-21 April 2005, ESTEC,
Noordwijk, The Netherland
Generalized Ricci Curvature Bounds for Three Dimensional Contact Subriemannian manifolds
Measure contraction property is one of the possible generalizations of Ricci
curvature bound to more general metric measure spaces. In this paper, we
discover sufficient conditions for a three dimensional contact subriemannian
manifold to satisfy this property.Comment: 49 page
Fundamental Physics with the Laser Astrometric Test Of Relativity
The Laser Astrometric Test Of Relativity (LATOR) is a joint European-U.S.
Michelson-Morley-type experiment designed to test the pure tensor metric nature
of gravitation - a fundamental postulate of Einstein's theory of general
relativity. By using a combination of independent time-series of highly
accurate gravitational deflection of light in the immediate proximity to the
Sun, along with measurements of the Shapiro time delay on interplanetary scales
(to a precision respectively better than 0.1 picoradians and 1 cm), LATOR will
significantly improve our knowledge of relativistic gravity. The primary
mission objective is to i) measure the key post-Newtonian Eddington parameter
\gamma with accuracy of a part in 10^9. (1-\gamma) is a direct measure for
presence of a new interaction in gravitational theory, and, in its search,
LATOR goes a factor 30,000 beyond the present best result, Cassini's 2003 test.
The mission will also provide: ii) first measurement of gravity's non-linear
effects on light to ~0.01% accuracy; including both the Eddington \beta
parameter and also the spatial metric's 2nd order potential contribution (never
measured before); iii) direct measurement of the solar quadrupole moment J2
(currently unavailable) to accuracy of a part in 200 of its expected size; iv)
direct measurement of the "frame-dragging" effect on light by the Sun's
gravitomagnetic field, to 1% accuracy. LATOR's primary measurement pushes to
unprecedented accuracy the search for cosmologically relevant scalar-tensor
theories of gravity by looking for a remnant scalar field in today's solar
system. We discuss the mission design of this proposed experiment.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figures; invited talk given at the 2005 ESLAB Symposium
"Trends in Space Science and Cosmic Vision 2020," 19-21 April 2005, ESTEC,
Noodrwijk, The Netherland
DETERMINANTS OF MENTAL HEALTH STIGMA AMONG PHARMACY STUDENTS IN AUSTRALIA, BELGIUM, ESTONIA, FINLAND, INDIA AND LATVIA
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